The HERO edition of the Algernon Files is a fantastically produced book. I like that the characters have their own pages, rather than one charatcter finishing on the same page that the next character begins. This makes printing out the idividual characters for filing much easier than some products. Great colour art. Great character descriptions and histories. Some fantastic ideas. Well thought out. More please!<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: Pretty much everything! :-)<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: n/a<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

The following review was done from the Hero System version of the book.

The Algernon Files is first a character book for an as yes unpublished setting. Containing eighty-one full character sheets and well over two dozen minions, bases, vehicles and minor characters. It is broken into three chapters, Introduction, Allies, and Villains. The latter two chapters are further broken down into organizations and independents. The end of the book contains a time-line for the Blackwyrm Games Universe and a short section on a War between two great alien races that underlines a lot of the background to the setting.

Chapter One - Introduction. The chapter is only a few pages, giving an introduction to the book. It also has a sample character sheet explaining the layout of the rest of the book.

Chapter Two - Allies. The first part are Hero Teams and Organizations. There are four altogether. The first is The Sentinels, the primary Hero Team in the Blackwyrm Games setting. The team itself is a legacy, still lead in the background by Doc Steele (see The Fires Of War). Many of the members are also legacy characters themselves, making for a team with an interesting and varied background. The next team is the most interesting, The Aerie. A bird themed group of four members who are a bit mercenary in their dealings, accepting money for good deeds but are still firmly on the side of the good guys. The team dynamic with that group is by far the most interesting for potential roleplay, having a leader that grates on most people, even his own teammates, but still trying to do good in the world. The third group is The Arsenal, a government sponsored group that fills the role of arrogant government lackeys well as a team, but as individuals tend to come off a bit softer, providing a good hook for roleplaying with the government types in your game. The last group is the organization The Covenant which maintains it's own group of mystic supers as well. The Covenant is the mystic good organization should your campaign have a good amount of magic in it this is a good inclusion. The groups are inventive and the dynamics keeping them together varied and interesting.

The second part of the chapter contains Independent heroes. It's a short section containing only six characters. A few of them are legacy heroes, having heroing in their family for generations. The most interesting of the lot is Film Noir, a movie character from noir detective movie come to life, which is a cool twist for a character.

A good selection of characters to choose from, but most of them belong to teams or a legacy of heros, making them a bit harder to drop strait into your campaign as written, but certainly not impossible.

Chapter Three - Enemies. Again we have four groups in the first part. The Black Knights are a ruthless batch of mercenaries almost intent on causing as much mayhem as possible as they are on making money. This is a very bloody and ruthless group, and not appropriate for campaigns that don't want a high body count. The next group is the Hells Belles, and really aren't villains. An all female rock group these supers are more a good bit of background flavor for any game, a bit light hearted and certainly on the wrong side of the law enough to cause a bit of mayhem for your players. Next is The Prometheans, the premiere master-villain group, indeed each member of the group could be a master villain for a short run in a campaign, taken altogether and you have the main foil for the Sentinels in the setting. The last group in the first part is The Sinister Circle, a group with an ever changing roster, which makes it easy to remove and add villains as needed to suit your game. As presented the group is another one that you really only want to include if you desire a body count in your Champions games.

The next part is Independents, twenty-five solo villains for your game. Ranging from Master Villain status all the way to henchman status. All of them are pretty decent write-ups of characters. There are a wide range of personalities and a decent range of special abilities to keep your players occupied. The only thing I noticed was that, from a mechanics point of view, the point totals tented to be very high for a standard Champions game. Some of this can easily be explained as the write-ups tend to place a heavier emphasis on skills than most Champions games do, but not all of it. There seemed to be a tendency to try and make many of the villains jack-of-all-trades types, many seem very self sufficient, which can limit their use in a game as there's little reason for many to work together, or use each other, as written. It's not to say they aren't unbalanced, each could probably hold their own against a team of players, but that only works if your game involves going from one villain to the next.

Is it a good book? Yes, I'd say it is. A decent enough collection of characters to include in your game, though removing the setting specific information might take a bit of work as many of the characters seem closely tied to both each other and the setting.

The Downside:

As I was reading the book I kept coming across the description of "super humanly strong and a fast healer" or variations on that phrase a lot. I couldn't help but think about halfway through the book that there were a large number of strong regenerating characters in this book and setting. It made for a bit of tedious redundancy in the characters as I read on.

As I read through the book I did notice a lot of characters have long histories, or connections to previous generations of heroes and villains. This tendency towards legacy characters can make it a bit harder to drop them as is strait into your home campaign. Though it does make for a very strong setting resource.

Also, for as much as this counts as I don't consider it a big deal, as I read the book over several days the covers warped considerably as I kept the book open for an hour or more at a time reading it over. Something I've always found annoying in many gaming books.

The Otherside:

Being a character book the appeal outside the Hero System is immediate, eighty-one heros and villains plus a host of support characters, vehicles and bases to take advantage of. There is a Mutants & Masterminds 2 version of the book as well, so you don't even have to convert if you're using that system.

Final thoughts, this book would be a strong supplement to a full setting book for the universe it talks about. You can take the many characters and file off the serial numbers for your own games, but it might take a bit of work to do so for the good number of legacy characters contained in it. Overall, a good solid collection of characters to use in your game, a bit pricey for what it is though. The PDF version is a good price for the book.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Asking for originality from a four-color superhero campaign setting is not always wise. What Algernon Files does, and does very well, is present a playable and effective set of characters and setting ideas that are meldable very easily into existing Champions campaigns and rules. Hell's Belles in particular are likely to see use in other Champions games as free-agents or, possibly, misunderstood heroines. The presentation is very good and clear, which makes this even more useful. It's very hard to find anything to dislike about this book.

A massive collection of superheroes, villains and more, The Algernon Files is available both for Mutants and Masterminds and HERO, in both a print version and PDF format. The following review was written based on the HERO system PDF.

Appearance:

The Algernon Files 2.0 for HERO system PDF version is attractive and well organized. The art of Derrick Thomas, Ryan Wolfe and Eric Rademaker follows a simple, attractive comic book style appropriate to the characters and locations described in the text. I?d be comfortable using this art to introduce characters to my players. Dave Mattingly?s layout-fu is strong, and the blend of text blocks, graphics and game mechanics is accessible and easy on the eyes. The PDF version is easy to navigate both via bookmarks and links from the table of contents.

Content:

This is where the book really shines. Useful both as a supplement for an existing campaign or as an internally consistent campaign world, The Algernon Files offers allies, enemies, vehicles, bases, maps, and a timeline that?s both entertaining and a good source of adventure seeds. I?d really like to see more products like this compatible with HERO.

The Algernon Files setting history is mostly built into the character backgrounds themselves. This is a real plus as you read through the characters and see the connections. The approach reminded me of the classic Enemies books. A timeline in Appendix I helps flesh things out further. It?s no problem to take individual characters or teams and fit them into a campaign that doesn?t make use of this setting, but the setting is a solid Comic Book homage world and makes for an entertaining read.

With a few exceptions, the character write ups consist of a single page giving character art and a short character summary (including suggestions on what is publicly known about the character) while a second page offers up the mechanics. It?s an impressively clean character sheet design. Sheets for bases and vehicles follow the same pattern.

The book opens with an Allies section laying out four Superhero teams and six independent heroes. Playing spot the homage was entertaining, and even more so as those same characters went through twists and turns over the course of their careers.

Teams include the Sentinels (a Justice League / Avengers class team), the Aerie (a moderately powerful bird themed team that reminded me among other things of the extended Batman family), the Arsenal (a super-patriot theme team), and the Covenant (a mystic theme team reminiscent of the Defenders). The teams make for solid potential allies, mentors or rivals for player characters, or as hand outs for use in one shots or convention games. They also make pretty handy models for how to build higher point total player characters in HERO without obsessing over combat efficiency or losing sight of what makes a given character unique.

Team vehicles, computers and bases are also presented, along with art and maps. The write ups, art and maps are again well done, and should be easy to re-use in an ongoing campaign.

The Enemies section was what I was mainly interested in when I first heard of this book, and I wasn?t disappointed. Four villain groups are introduced along with twenty-four independent villains, including vehicles, bases and followers. It?s a great mix and covers a fair range of power levels and challenge types, from morally grey mercenaries, rebels and misguided crusaders to inter-dimensional tricksters and cosmic threats. Once again the homage characters fly fast and furious. All in all this section offers a very solid collection of scum and villainy.

Villain groups include the Black Knights (super mercenaries with a base that could serve as a fixture in many games), the Hell?s Bells (themed Super Rock Band that could come into play as neutrals, anti-heroes or anarchist villains), the Prometheans (a ?family? of villains able to fill multiple campaign niches), and the Sinister Circle (a diverse villain team reminiscent of groups like the Injustice League and other collections of super-villains meant to offer a challenge to large, diverse hero groups). The massive collection of independents could easily be mined to form additional villain teams or flesh out teams already existing in a campaign. Many of the independents are more than able to challenge entire teams on their own. Again, stats, maps and art are provided for multiple vehicles and bases.

The Algernon Files for Hero closes with three Appendixes. Appendixes I (Timeline) and II (War in the Heavens) cover the setting in more depth, while Appendix III (The Speed Chart) offers a combination quick reference speed chart and index of characters.

Overall I was very pleased with this book. Offering Super heroes, villains, bases, vehicles, equipment, and a setting easy to include or ignore, The Algernon Files for HERO makes for a great addition to any Superhero RPG fan?s library.
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<b>LIKED</b>: Character back stories, art, layout.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Some of the mechanics were odd or incorrect. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>